Azam Khan fires another salvo at Amar Singh

Rampur (Uttar Pradesh) April 10 (IANS) The bitter war between Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh and veteran leader Mohammed Azam Khan rages on in the run-up to the elections and shows no signs of ending soon. Samajwadi Party national general secretary Azam Khan has asked Muslims to remain vigilant and foil the “conspiracies” being hatched to divide the community.

“Another national general secretary (Amar Singh), accompanying actor Sanjay Dutt in the course of his election tour, misguided Subhani Mian, leader of the Barielvi sect by alleging that Azam Khan was faithful to the Deobandi sect. This is a dangerous conspiracy to create a gulf between two sects of Muslims,” Azam Khan said in a statement issued here Thursday evening.

He said the nomination of Maulana Khalil Athar Ashrafi and Maulana Yasin Usmani as presidents of the State Arabic Persian Board and the Urdu Academy respectively during the party’s rule was enough to prove his sincerity and intentions to keep the community and the two sects together.

He said if community members refrained from responding forcefully to these “conspirators”, the party will not have a single Muslim leader to raise voice against Kalyan Singh, a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader with whom the Samajwadi Party has arrived at an understanding, and others.

While Amar Singh is backing actress-turned-politician Jaya Prada as the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from Rampur, Azam Khan and his followers are opposed to her candidature and have been campaigning against her.

A group of Samajwadi Party activists have been supporting Azam Khan’s demand to shift Jaya Prada from Rampur and field a non-Muslim, non-actor and a male candidate, said Azam Khan’s aide Mohammed Mustafa.